Hi Guys,

I'm sure this has come up before but any help would be great. I'm getting 10 ex battery layers in a couple of weeks, most of the eggs we'll eat ourselve but if we get more than we need i intend to sell them to work friends.

How do I stand legally here, do I need any licenses from DEFRA etc?? I understand if I sold the eggs at the top of my drive then I don't require any tickets?!

If anyone else is in a similar position I'd be very interested to hear your experince and advice. I use to rear 100's of free range chickens for the table but egg production is a new venture!!

Cheers, Ben 

As I understand it, and I could well be wrong, you can sell from the farm gate and doorstep sales without needing your eggs to be date stamped. But if you start selling in a retail environment, then you need to start date stamping. I looked at this myself recently and you can get onto the Defra website pages and go round in circles on this one. There were other regs, but I just gave up at this point.....  The serious egg production guys will have the answers for you, and I would still  be quietly interested to find out.

If you are due to have 10 exbatts,  I would just plan a couple of extra omlette nights in a week and do a swapsie with your friends, neighbours & colleagues. Its surprising what you can trade weekly for fresh eggs!

Like hastyexit, I believe you can sell them but are not allowed to grade or date stamp them. Officially local pubs, cafe's etc are not allowed to buy them if they are for subsequent sale to the public.

I agree that your best best is to find a few friends or neigbours who will take half a dozen a week, and eat a few more yourselves. With ten birds you are only likely to get four dozen per week.

A tip however is not to underprice them. Charge the same as they would have to pay for free range at the supermarket for their medium sized organic eggs. If you charge too little you undermine other local freerangers and, more importantly, you devalue the product which, on the one hand you are saying is better and on the other cheaper. A message such as this simply causes conflicting emotions in your customer and is to be avoided.

All the best and happy eating.

You may be interested in some hygiene tips for Free Range Egg Production in this article from this month's Poultry World:

http://www.octagon-services.co.uk/articles/poultry/hygiene.pdf

Brachyspira infection is a significant business risk in layers now.

 Michael

All the above is true.  I can't remember where I read it.  But I did and remembered it because my kids have four chickens at the bottom of the garden.  We sell the spare eggs to friends.  There are not many spare when they have regular Eggy Dip Dip.  Egg and Soldiers to you.

You do not need an ID number for under 50 birds.  Therefore they don't need a stamp.  However I also read somewhere that it is shortly to become compulsary to register flocks of 50 birds or more. 

You cannot sell them as Free Range because that requires certification.  However just let your customers see your happy birds and that is better than any label. 

You should label the boxes with a use by date of not more than 28 days from lay. 

You can sell them to friends for their consumption but you cannot sell them to retailers, cafe's or pubs where they are to be sold on. 

Enjoy your hens they have a great attitude, I love em.